New MacBook pros updated? (1 Viewer)

I see on Apple's website that there's slightly improved Macbook pro's at 2.4ghz (called Santa Rosa on some sites); is this the new model, or is an announcement still expected to be made at WWDC? Just curious because I'm about to upgrade and this "new" model doesn't seem to be a huge improvement over the previous one.

The announcement was made this past week and it's a pretty decent improvement. The 15-inch LCD's now use LED backlighting which will reduce power consumption and (supposedly) make for a longer lasting, uniform brightness. The Santa Rosa chipset also provides energy savings and provides increased battery life. The frontside bus speed has also increased, as has the maximum amount of RAM (they are now delivered with 2GB RAM standard.) They also have better video cards now.

This is it for the MacBook Pros. Whether an entirely new model will be announced next week, we'll just have to wait and see. I'd hold off on any purchase for a few days.

The LED backlights have a far more uniform brightness from corner to corner.

I just saw the frontpage and now I'm pretty sure these are the "new" models as promised (I entered the site through a different page so I didn't see the announcement on the front). Im going to hold off till WWDC just in case but I doubt there going to announce anything bigger. I'm surprised that the speedbump wasn't any higher though, as well as any support for HD dvd roms. Anyone know of any good review sites?

That's the fastest Core2Duo processor that Intel makes (I think they have slightly faster ones in the Core2Duo Extreme brand, but those probably aren't suitable for laptops).

This is one thing that long-time Mac users will have to get used to following the switch to Intel -- if Apple plans to keep up with Intel's chip rollouts they will not be able to make big announcements with each speed increase.

We were already used to it...how are incremental speed bumps any different than the final years with Motorola's chips? Plus I don't see any other companies like AMD coming out with huge leaps in clock speeds.

Thing is, the machines are significantly faster -- there just wasn't a significant increase in processor speed. But that number is virtually irrelevant these days anyways.

http://www.barefeats.com/rosa02.html

As said, and seen at http://store.apple.com , these are the new MacBook Pros. From Apple watching the past year and the rumor sites, this is it; there's no other MBP release waiting in the wings for next week. If they to hide a Developer-oriented MBP, for announcement at WWDC, surely it would have been the 1920x1600 17" model?

While I was hoping for a higher resolution option on the 15" models, the only real upgrade feature left out is an 800 MHz FSB to match Santa Rosa's CPU FSB. But this is a nice upgrade. These are the fastest CPUs available for portable use. You can go to 4GB RAM with 2GB default and the 17" now competes with UWXGA (?) screens available for Windows machines.

There some's chit chat about these machines here.
And, I'm pleased to say, I've got a new 15" MBP, so they darn well not release a better version next week!

This is the new rev of the MBPs. The most we'll get is probably a processor speed bump (should Intel make a faster one) some time around late 2007, early 2008. Or perhaps they'll finally bundle in 800MHz RAM instead of the 667MHz RAM, since the FSB of Santa Rose is 800MHz.

The "surprise" from WWDC is probably going to be one or more of the following:

1. New iMac line, featuring Apple's own admitted "new industrial design".
2. New Apple Cinema Displays, probably moving the 23" to the 24" size of the largest iMac, hopefully also including either LED and/or HDCP.
3. New iPod - though not a multi-touch touchscreen version, just larger hard drives for the video, more flash RAM for the Nano (16GB?). I believe though they are perfectly capable of making one, they will make the iPhone the only multi-touch device they sell in order to maximize sales from people who want that functionality in an iPod. Maybe by 2008 we'll see multi-touch iPods (without the phone functionality).

Hopefully some day they'll match RAM speed to the FSB of the Mac Pro. And maybe not use error-correction RAM since it comes at a speed cost. My desktop is on its last legs, I can probably milk another 6-12 months from it.

Now that I've got a MBP with bluetooth, a bluetooth or wireless iPod would be a compelling upgrade.

But this is because Apple has ignored a sensible hardware product: docking station for their portables.

At the speed of bluetooth, that would take forever to upload a library of any considerable size!

What I want is for them to give back Firewire support for their iPod, preferably Firewire 800. Yes, I have a 48GB iTunes collection. That Firewire would take off 15 minutes each time I have to fully transfer the library to my iPod (I periodically erase and re-load all of the songs to prevent iPod fragmentation).

I don't really blame Apple for taking a pass on this, as the market for such a product is probably microscopic. Besides, it flies in the face of owning a "portable" computer if you want to leave it attached to a dock for extended periods of time. BookEndz makes docks for people that want them although I think they're a ripoff and look ugly.

For home users, you're probably right, though I would have seriously considered it.

But for business users, I see docking stations used commonly: the laptop is the primary computer, made comfortable at the office with a dock, but easily taken on the road.

And I want to buy a wireless keyboard and mouse so I can use my MBP in my home office like a normal computer with minimal cabling (thanks to no dock), but easily take out of the office.


As for iPod syncing over BT -- after syncing my PDA by bluetooth, I realize now it's a slow connection, so scratch that. It would need to support WiFi to be sensible.

May I ask what is stopping you from buying this wireless keyboard and this wireless mouse? Especially since are now familiar with the benefits of bluetooth

Hopefully next week you wont see any macbook pro updates, but for me, hopefully a macbook update

I don't like the Apple keyboard and mouse. I've been using a Microsoft Natural Elite keyboard for years, and want something similar -- a curved, ergo keyboard. MS has some bluetooth options, but I need to learn if there are any issues using those with a Mac.

Dude... it's been what, ten days? They're not going to update them again for at least a few months.

Thanks. I hadn't seen that. It looks like the MS Laser series 4000 and earlier is available for the Mac. I guess they stopped revising the Mac versions, since the Windows line is up to 8000 now.

I'd stay away from whatever store you were at earlier if they're charging $300...the Apple Store's price is 70 bucks.